From: Art Lover #1 — Curate, Collaborate, Connect

You've received an email. Welcome to 'From: Art Lover,' a series exploring art and emotions. Dive into the importance of narratives, inspiration, and the stories behind each creation. Brought to you by Carlos Gómez, CEO & Founder of Cultions, this collection offers a unique reflection on the art world's heart and soul.

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In my opinion, every piece created by an artist carries importance, from the well-known to the obscure, the large-scale to the small, the sketches to the finished works. Each piece embodies a moment of the artist’s time, a segment of their life dedicated to its creation. Ultimately, these works collectively define their artistic trajectory. Collectors, those maintaining artists’ legacies, private individuals, as well as museums and institutions (including those pieces stored away in warehouses, unseen but yearned for), should commit to fully showcasing their slice of artistic heritage and share it to foster connections and intrigue. Artworks serve as the most direct link to the artist, not just through the visible, but also through the unseen, prompting viewers to ponder: What inspired this creation? What message did the artist wish to convey? Have I understood it correctly? These are questions we should ponder more often, yet the challenge arises when the primary source, the artist, is no longer present to answer. Thus, it's crucial we encourage artists to share this part of their legacy too.

I am among the many art lovers who delight in visiting galleries, art fairs, antique shops, and museums, and when a piece strikes me, I dive deeper into it. I’m not sure if others feel the same, but it’s at that moment the spark is ignited, and it cannot be extinguished. The desire to know more about the artist, to find more of their works to grasp the breadth of their art, the thrill of discovering a new pathway within art that expands your passion. Art evokes reactions in me because I have always perceived and felt it from the heart, from emotion, not just considering it as an investment or for its potential appreciation in value, but for the sheer satisfaction of being in the presence of what is most significant about an artist: their works.

Over the years, I have sought to curate, selecting works that resonated with me, which ultimately reflect my identity, my personal narrative as an art lover. We should all have the opportunity to express that identity through a selection of works that either I own or do not, but which define my taste in art.

Additionally, I am one of many collectors who have preserved, created, and cataloged both physical and digital documents with information about artists, research on works, and countless anecdotes surrounding them. Ultimately, art collecting is a journey of learning, knowledge, and enrichment, filled with experiences, enjoyed in the moment or shared with others, which will always remain in memory. I have always strived, with those who share similar tastes or interests in art as me, to share and collaborate for a mutual benefit of cultural enrichment, without the selfishness of having found or owning information. One of the challenges I often face is suspicion, but we must endeavor to make everyone contribute to the present and especially the future benefit of our common cultural legacy. What is not shared or preserved, fades away and is lost. I have met many people with great professional experience in art or even great collectors who were vast repositories of knowledge, which, once gone, is impossible to recover.

And of course, I am among the many art enthusiasts who, when obsessed with something, search and search until they find a contact, a knowledgeable person, a reference… although it is true that often the search fails, and therein lies the effort to continue. Occasionally, you are surprised by what people are willing to share, what they need to know and connect with. Art cannot be a cold world, because it is true that, as a result of that connection, of that experience, it makes you see a work or an artist in a different way, with a special value, more unique or closer to you. Art is not just seeing; it is discovering, feeling, and getting excited, it is knowing all the intangible, and for that, it is also about connecting with artists, gallery owners, family members of artists, experts, collectors, and anyone who can offer you something new.

In the end, for those who buy a piece of art, just like for those who create it, or for those who study it, art is also a compendium of intangible values that often have more importance than the mere economic value, since through all of them that economic value can be even greater.

At Cultions, we will attempt to harmonize all those intangible values so that through emotion and enthusiasm they create that magic in the viewer through knowledge about the work and the artist. Cultions is a project that will bring the physical world of art as close as possible to a digital realm and its Phygital concept so that the new digital generations can also appreciate and value what artists create and have created in the physical world.

Art, in essence, is for me, to curate, collaborate, and connect.